Archives

Given the tough economic climate, John Griffin, National Geographic group president and Magazine Publishers of America chairman, said publishers must position their magazines to grab post-recession advertising. “Those are unallocated dollars,” Griffin said. “When that money comes back, I want it to come to us rather than someone else.”The challenges, Griffin acknowledged, are to meet the demand for faster audience metrics while appeasing advertisers who are used to the speed of the Internet, overnight television ratings and the other media willing to bend and contort to integrate marketing messages into their product offerings. “Advertisers want to borrow—or steal—the credibility and authority we have with our readers,” Griffin said. “And we want to give it to them” without threatening the credibility and authority, he said. “[At National Geographic] we’re always asking ‘How far can we go with this?’ It’s a contestant internal struggle.”“It’s the single biggest point of contention within our company,” said Deidre Depke, Newsweek.com’s assistant managing editor. (Depke recently took a buyout from Newsweek and is leaving the company, one of many longtime editorial staffers to do so.) “The only editorial asset our magazine has is its content—for us to abandon that, and let advertisers do what they want with it, would be a big mistake.”‘Handcuffs’ But Steve Sturm, group VP of strategic research and planning at Toyota Motor North America, said magazines need to realize that their readers don’t care as much about editorial ethics and the concept of a church-state line as publishers—if at all. “[The line] has been self-governed and self-policed—you’ve put the handcuffs on yourselves,” Sturm said. “The federal government, the state government, they haven’t told you to do it. You put up all these roadblocks” that other media don’t have. And a younger generation of potential readers, he said, “don’t play by the same rules you play by.”Another challenge young readers present, Griffin said, is a substantial pressure on newsstand price. “Younger consumers expect content to be free; we have to deal with that.”“It’s critical we get their attention,” Griffin continued. “They’re not going to the newsstand.”But Griffin said that improving the speed of audience metrics—as evidenced by the MPA’s recently-announced initiative to do so—is the top priority in 2008. We need to figure out a way to give [marketers] metrics at the speed they are demanding,” Griffin said, before clarifying. “Well, maybe not that speed, but faster than we are now.” NEW YORK—With dwindling newsstand and advertising revenue, slashed marketing budgets, skyrocketing postal and production costs—and, oh yeah, that recession thing—consumer magazine publishers need be innovative, perhaps more than ever before, to survive.And they’re probably going to have to blow up the church-state boundary between advertising and editorial, too.Those were the bullet points that dominated a lively discussion among some 700 advertising and publishing executives at the 12th annual New York Magazine Day Wednesday.read more

Tags Aston Martin will design your car a home — seriously Driving the Aston Martin Valkyrie on the Red Bull F1… 12:41 Post a comment 0 2020 Hyundai Palisade review: Posh enough to make Genesis jealous More From Roadshow Share your voice Now playing: Watch this: 2020 BMW M340i review: A dash of M makes everything better 8 Photos More about 2019 Aston Martin DBS Superleggera Preview • 2019 Aston Martin DBS Superleggera: Beast mode Enlarge ImageIs this where James Bond villains hang out? Aston Martin Those who can afford Aston Martins likely have no issue splurging on the finer things in life. To that end, we bet many of the company’s customers will jump onboard to design homes specifically for their cars.That’s correct. Aston Martin will now design homes specifically for a car. The brand made the announcement as Monterey Car Week kicks off in California on Thursday and dubbed the new service the Aston Martin Automotive Galleries and Lairs division. The service ranges from mild to wild, though if I’m being honest, all of this is wild.The Galleries and Lairs service will design anything from a custom garage for a luxury vehicle or collection to a full-blown “luxury retreat.” The photos look like something out of a James Bond villain’s secret hideaway and it’s equal parts mesmerizing and awesome.The latest service will be part of Q by Aston Martin, the automaker’s bespoke division, and those who opt to take part in the luxury garage building will work with the brand’s designers and renowned architects. Wherever the customer wants their dream car home, Aston Martin will tap local architects that know the lay of the land best — and you better believe they’re good at what they do.The company explained that no matter what the owner wants, the car will take center stage in the build. We see some more restrained examples in the photos of a few Aston Martins on display in what looks like something of an art gallery. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we see what appears to be a Valhalla concept car inside of an aquarium. Around the car is space for entertaining a group of guests. I told you this stuff got really wild.Whatever the wishes or desires, they’ll have an Aston Martin touch. Believe it or not, Chief Creative Officer Marek Reichman and his team have already done interior design work for a new 66-story residential tower going up in Miami, Florida. Whether it’s a supercar sunken around the water or a vintage DB5 with the sky as its spotlight, it sounds like the Galleries and Lairs service puts everything on the table.Suddenly, my pinned-up supercars calendar in the garage feels like subpar decor. 2020 Hyundai Sonata first drive: An attractive and compelling midsize sedan Luxury cars Car Industry Monterey Car Week 2019 Aston Martin Aston Martinread more

IBTimes VideoRelated VideosMore videos Play VideoPauseMute0:03/2:37Loaded: 0%0:03Progress: 0%Stream TypeLIVE-2:34?Playback Rate1xChaptersChaptersDescriptionsdescriptions off, selectedSubtitlessubtitles settings, opens subtitles settings dialogsubtitles off, selectedAudio Trackdefault, selectedFullscreenThis is a modal window.Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.TextColorWhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanTransparencyOpaqueSemi-TransparentBackgroundColorBlackWhiteRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanTransparencyOpaqueSemi-TransparentTransparentWindowColorBlackWhiteRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanTransparencyTransparentSemi-TransparentOpaqueFont Size50%75%100%125%150%175%200%300%400%Text Edge StyleNoneRaisedDepressedUniformDropshadowFont FamilyProportional Sans-SerifMonospace Sans-SerifProportional SerifMonospace SerifCasualScriptSmall CapsReset restore all settings to the default valuesDoneClose Modal DialogEnd of dialog window. COPY LINKAD Loading … All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar, Odisha [Representational Image]Wikimedia CommonsAll India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh landed was recently slapped a fine of Rs 60,000 for a false HIV positive diagnosis. While the diagnosis was done in 2014, the fine was imposed after Naseem Ali, a patient, approached the Haridwar consumer court. One of the reasons cited for the fine was “giving an incorrect HIV report to a fit person,” reports The Times of India.In 2014, Ali had visited a private hospital in Roorkee after he discovered that his blood was not clotting. He then went to AIIMS Rishikesh only to be given the diagnosis that he was HIV positive.In July 2014, Ali underwent more tests at Shri Mahant Indiresh Hospital and the reports came back stating that he was HIV negative.Angered, Ali filed a complaint at the district consumer forum in Haridwar. AIIMS Rishikesh will now have to pay Ra 50,000 and an extra Rs 10,000 for “wasting the complainant’s time and energy” within a month or the institution will have to pay six per cent interest to the complainant annually. The court also said that the tests caused severe mental trauma for the man as well as social problems due to the stigma surrounding HIV.The directive came out on April 22 and read, “Ensure payment of Rs 50,000 and Rs 10,000 within one month for incorrect treatment. And in case the amount is not paid within a month, then you will be liable to pay this amount at 6% annual interest.”AIIMS Rishikesh is planning on filing an appeal at a higher court. “We will appeal against the judgment in the state consumer forum. It was a documentation error and probably the very next day, it became clear to the patient that his report was negative. And nowhere in the discharge papers was it mentioned that the patient was HIV positive,” Dr Manoj Kumar, the spokesperson of the institute, was quoted as saying by TOI. Close Ragpicker’s son gets selected at Jodhpur AIIMS for MBBS, says want to work for his villageread more

Hurst said a heater in one area of the prison wasn’t working for about a week, and was fixed in the last couple of days. While it was down, he said temporary heaters were brought in. Jennifer Erschabek, executive director of the inmate families association, said she heard about a broken heater at Allred shortly before hearing about a hunger strike at the prison. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed on Tuesday that 37 inmates kept in solitary confinement had been refusing meals since Christmas. A spokesman said the prisoners complained of various issues like food portions, recreation time and temperature. On Wednesday evening, Hurst said all the inmates had started accepting meals again.“There’s a lot of attention on the hunger strike, but at the same time there are so many people who are so cold in the prisons for one reason or another,” said Erschabek.Being cold in the winter is something inmates and guards regularly endure in a prison system where buildings date back to the 1800s, according to Cheri Siegelin, president of the Huntsville chapter of the Texas Correctional Employees Union.“The fact remains that a lot of the infrastructure of a lot of these prisons are old. Some of them are not meant to be in operation as long as they have been,” she said. She said the cold is “an ongoing issue, but we deal with it.”Siegelin said that during cold weather, prison officials hand out extra blankets, and inmates can buy thermal underwear and extra socks from the commissary. She said some things take longer to fix because older equipment calls for rarer parts. “Some of these boilers are so old that when they call for a part, it has to be special-ordered,” she said. “You can’t just run down to the local maintenance shop.”The issue of temperatures at Texas prisons has already been contentious. The state is under a federal injunction to provide air conditioning for medically vulnerable inmates at one prison during the hot summer months while a lawsuit on the prison’s conditions winds through the courts.In the lawsuit, inmates at the Pack Unit near College Station claim temperatures at the prison that routinely exceed 100 degrees in the summer consist of cruel and unusual punishment. A federal judge in Houston agreed last July in an emergency ruling, and the order is being appealed.Nearly two dozen Texas inmates have died of heat stroke since 1998. But while almost 75 percent of the state’s prisons and jails don’t have air conditioning, all have heating, according to the Department of Criminal Justice.Jeff Edwards, the lead attorney in the air conditioning lawsuit, had not heard of the recent reports of inadequate heating, but said that the law is “equally well established” when it comes to providing heat in the winter.“When you incarcerate a group of people, there are obligations that you have to adhere to under the Constitution, and one of them is humane shelter,” he said. “Part of humane shelter, it’s well established, is safe temperatures.”Edwards said it would obviously take a little bit of time to fix a broken heater, and short-term fixes like additional blankets and space heaters can work, but that it shouldn’t take as long as was reported by relatives of inmates at the Allred Unit.“If there’s a part that they’re waiting on for weeks, that’s unacceptable,” he said. “This is a very easy problem for them to solve, and all it takes is a little bit of competence. End of story.” Share Erschabek said she reached out to her group’s members to compile a list of prisons with heat issues because state Rep. Alma Allen’s office reached out after hearing about the hunger strike. She said Allen, a Houston Democrat who serves as vice chair on the House Corrections Committee, wanted to gather information for the committee.Allen could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.“I think it’s going to take money from the Legislature to beef up the infrastructure in the system to where they can properly take care of these people,” Erschabek said. Rob CrowMore than 30 Texas prisons had heating issues during a cold snap that brought freezing temperatures to much of the state this week, according to reports by inmates’ family members.The Texas Inmate Families Association, a support and advocacy group, compiled reports by inmates’ relatives that blamed poor insulation, broken windows and nonfunctioning heaters for the cold conditions in the facilities.Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Robert Hurst said Wednesday that all prison units were “operating with adequate heating.”Several of the advocacy group’s members reported that prison officials had recently fixed broken heaters at their loved ones’ facilities, but many continued to report problems with prison heating Wednesday. Two women told The Texas Tribune that relatives had been without heat for more than a month at the Allred Unit near Wichita Falls.The women, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation against their relatives, said separately that they were told by inmates and prison officials the prison was waiting on parts to fix a broken heater. Both said guards worked in hats, gloves and heavy jackets.read more